


Strike Twice

by rachelindeed



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Mrs. Hudson in peril but smart about it, The Speckled Band, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4480400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rachelindeed/pseuds/rachelindeed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a myth that lightning never strikes twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strike Twice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Watson's Woes community, prompt 24: A Long Suffering Woman. Some spoilers for the ACD story "The Speckled Band." Set sometime between _The Great Game_ and _A Scandal in Belgravia._

This year, Martha decided, it would be carnations. Last year's lilies had wilted under the late frost and done no one any good.

She ran into the boys on her way back from the nursery, red blooms peeking through the handles of her bags. Sherlock was explaining a deduction, fingers plucking at the air. John, without taking his eyes off him, reached over and took the heaviest package off her hands, brushing his elbow against hers to show he wasn’t ignoring her, just multi-tasking. She dug out her keys as they walked. 

Once they got home, she and John set her planters on the floor by the stairs. John said the flowers looked lovely. 

Sherlock, mid-text, said, “They’ll be gone by tomorrow,” and without looking up, he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

He was up the stairs a moment later – blitzkrieg affection was always his way – leaving John looking honestly startled. 

~~

Helen and Julia had been outdoor girls, but they never ran wild. They’d lived in each other’s pockets - almost in each other’s heads. They loved to stay out after dark, hop the gates to the neighborhood pool and stick their feet in the water. Martha used to find them there, blue light and shadow striping their faces. Sometimes she stuck her feet in, too, and helped them count the tree frogs.

Their mother, Martha’s sister, had passed years ago, and when they lost their father, too, they came to live with her and Roy. They drank orange juice on the patio before school and laughed at her dances and tried to absorb her accent. They watched too much television and made an awful mess with pancakes and learned to drive on the wrong side of the road. They told her she was elegant. 

They weren’t quite sure how to act around Roy. He spent long days at the clinic and late nights running the other business – he had to keep moving the lab. They were careful around him, called him “doctor” and “sir,” so polite. 

Martha didn’t realize he hated them. When they were sixteen, they figured out about the meth. She didn’t realize that, either, but Roy did. They loved her, so they didn’t call the police.

In the world Martha grew up in, death by snakebite would have seemed far-fetched. But Florida still had its share of rattlesnake nests. The similarity of the girls’ extreme reactions to the venom was written off as genetic; they had been twins. Roy swore he had injected them both with antivenin as soon as he got them to the clinic. Martha was very sure that whatever he had really injected them with would never show up in the autopsies. He was a doctor – he had nerve, and he had knowledge. 

Martha cried herself sick and then drove to Pensacola to purchase a shotgun. While she was waiting for the retailer to unlock the ammunition case, a tall young man in ridiculously unseasonal clothing walked up to her and said, “Please consider me as an alternative to homicide.”

He proved to be an excellent alternative. Roy went to prison, and eventually to hell. 

Martha moved back to London and planted flowers for her nieces once a year at the children’s hospital.

~~

The red carnations filtered through her dream that night and she woke slowly, feeling stiff as usual. She rarely moved about in her sleep. Her bad hip was too apt to complain if she rolled to either side. Eyes closed, she stretched out her toes and started to lift one arm to her pillow.

A dry rattle, ticking like the hand of a clock, sounded very loud. 

Adrenalin hit her bloodstream before she was even fully conscious. She froze, her hand half lifted and eyes still closed.

She felt it move. Holy god, it was on her chest.

Her throat locked and she couldn’t make herself open her eyes. She put her hand down very slowly. The rattle subsided, and the dry, warm weight redistributed itself on top of her. 

It hurt to breathe, but that was just terror. She hadn’t been bitten yet. It made absolutely no sense for a rattlesnake to be in her bed in central London. She didn’t know what was happening, but she had to get help.

She couldn’t scream or make any noise loud enough to reach upstairs – she couldn’t startle it. She laid still and felt tears trail from her closed eyes down the sides of her face and tried to remember where she’d left her phone.

Please lord, let it be on the bedside table. She moved her hand incrementally against the sheets, keeping the palm flat down. She counted to fifty, then moved it slightly again. Fifty. Again. Fifty. Again. Fifty. Again. Her fingers were beginning to edge over the side of the mattress.

The rattle sounded, warning.

She held still and counted. Lost count and restarted. By the time she’d reached thirty the noise had stopped, but she counted to five hundred before she tried moving again.

After fifteen minutes, she had her hand on the mobile keypad. She felt for the bottom left corner – redial – and pressed. Then she covered the phone with her hand to muffle the sound as best she could. She heard the ringing on the line, and John picked up before it went to voicemail. 

“Answer your damn phone, Sherlock,” she heard, and then, “Morning, Mrs. Hudson.”

She kept her hand tight over the phone.

After a minute, he repeated, “Mrs. Hudson?”

Blindly, she pressed a key and heard the slight beep on the line.

After a short pause, he spoke again, quietly enough that she lifted her hand off the receiver. “Okay, is this a bad connection or are you in trouble? One for yes or, yeah, ignore me for no.”

She pressed again, one careful beep. Thank god living with Sherlock Holmes had made him paranoid.

“Right. I’m coming, we’re coming. It’s going to be okay. Are you alone?”

Two beeps. She needed him to be quiet and to bring his gun when he came down.

He did both, but then he and Sherlock burst through the door, expecting criminals, and the snake reared up with a horrible sound.

John swore and froze, his gun pointed square at its head. He swore again and braced himself, readjusting his grip, but Sherlock, behind him, whispered, "Wait."

Slowly, carefully, Sherlock approached the bed. Gradually, he lowered himself until he was crouched by Martha’s head. It seemed to take an age. He opened his hand and gently extended it until his palm hovered above her face and his arm blocked her shoulder and throat. A human shield.

He didn’t speak, but glanced over his shoulder at John.

There was an explosive sound, a horrible wet spatter, and a rush of blue silk as she screamed into Sherlock’s side.

He held her tight, and she didn’t look while John pulled the remains of the snake off of her bed.

~~

They found a business card on the carpet outside her flat. It was for the IT department at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and on the back there was a cartoonish zig-zag of lightning. Underneath, it read, “Never strikes twice? That’s a myth, my dear. See you soon.”


End file.
